High oxygen pressure has been applied for a floating zone (FZ) crystal grower in order to grow high quality (rutile) single crystals suitable for optical application. The crystals, grown under 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.8MPa oxygen pressure respectively, are all transparent and dark blue. The degree of the presence of sub-grain boundary in the crystal differs from the applied oxygen pressure. In particular, single crystals grown under0.5 MPa showed sub-grain boundary-free and estimated good for optical devices.

The CZ-silicon crystal was annealed at to dissolve the vacancy type grown-in defects. A this temperature, the equilibrium concentration of the oxygen in the silicon crystal is around which induces the oxygen undersaturation in the silicon crystal. This situation results in the faster dissolution of the grown-in defects in the bulk of the silicon wafer than near the surface. This indicates the possibility that the presence of the higher concentration of silicon interstitial hinders the dissolution of the grown-in defects, which were known to compose of the vacancy clusters with surrounding silicon oxide film. This expectation was confirmed by the observation that the slower dissolution of the grown-in defects near the surface of the silicon wafer in the oxygen atmosphere than in the argon atmosphere. This result is quite opposite to the previous argument hat presence of the excess silicon interstitial leads to faster dissolution of the vacancy type defects.

In this study, diluted magnetic epilayers were grown on GaAs(100) substrates by hot-wall epitaxy, and their characteristics were systematically examined. The maximum Mn composition of the epilayers was 0.97. The crystallographic orientation was toward <100> and the structure of the epilayers was the zincblende structure, identical to those of the GaAs substrate. With increasing the substrate temperature (350~), Mn composition increased (0.02~0.23) and he quality of the epilayer became worse. The lattice constants increased linearly with increasing Mn composition, but the band gap energy increased nonlinearly with increasing x.

A parametric cmpariosn of etch rate and etch selectivity has been performed for GaN, InN and AIN etched in chlorine- and boron halides-based Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) discharges. Chlorine-based chemistries produced controllable etch rates (50~150 nm/min) and maximum etch selectivities ~6 for InN over GaN and ~10 for InN over AlN. Maximum etch selectivities of ~100 for InN over GaN and InN over AlN were obtained in boron halides-based discharges and smooth etched surface morphologies were also achieved.

The freestanding GaN substrates were grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) on (0001) sapphire substrate and prepared by using laser induced lift-off. After a mechanical polishing on both Ga and N-surfaces of GaN films with 100 thick, their polarities have been investigated by using chemical etching in phosphoric acid solution, 3 dimensional surface profiler and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). The composition of the GaN film measured by AES indicted that Ga and N terminated surfaces have the different N/Ga peak ratio of 0.74 and 0.97, respectively. Ga-face and N-face of GaN revealed quite different chemical properties: the polar surfaces corresponding to (0001) plane are resistant to a phosphoric acid etching whereas N-polar surfaces corresponding to(0001) are chemically active.

Hydroxyapatite-yttria stabilized zirconia bioceramics containing fine zirconia particles were prepared as 3-layered functionally graded materials (FGMs) using a spark plasma sintering (SPS) and hot pressing (HP) apparatuses. The pretreatment of the raw hydroxyapatite promoted the sinterability of hydroxyapatite. The maximum density of pretreated FGM composites could be obtained at lower temperature than that for he untreated FGM samples. No decomposition from hydroxyapatite to three calcium phosphate (TCP) was observed in FGMs of HAp- sintered below for 8 min under 10 MPa by SPS. However, the transformation of the tetragonal zirconia to the cubic modification had occurred in FGMs at this temperature. The presence of zirconia i.e. stress induced transformation of zirconia may be expected to enhance the mechanical properties of HAp- FGM. The SPS is concluded as a better method to fabricated the FGM with dense and high strength compared with HP process.

The simulation system for analyzing the ceramic drying process is developed. This system consists of 3 parts: pre-processor, analyzer, and post-processor. The pre-processor creates 3-dimensional ceramics, makes finite-element models, and prepares analyzers input. The analyzer computes temperature, moisture, residual stress, displacement, etc. during the drying process using the information about finite-element model, material property, and boundary condition provided by the pre-processor. In post-processor, the analyzers results are visualized to help designers evaluation of the drying of the ceramic.

The effect of grain shape on the grain growth behavior of oxide system was investigated as afunction of liquid content during liquid phase sintering. As a model system, the solid grains of and MgO were selected during liquid phase sintering, i.e. faceted shape of in liquid phase and spherical shape of MgO in liquid phase. The average grain size of MgO with spherical shape was decreased with increasing the liquid phase content, whereas that of with faceted shape was independent of liquid phase content. In the case of grains with faceted shape, which interfaces are expected to be atomically flat, are likely to grow by the interfacial reaction controled process. Whereas, in the case of MgO grains with spherical shape, which interface are expected to be atomically rough, are likely to grow by the diffusion controlled process.